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| Homemade moonshine distillery on display at the Notah-Dineh Museum in Cortez, Colorado. Photograph copyright Erin S. Gray. |
On January 16, 1920, the
“Noble Experiment” known as Prohibition went into effect in the United States.
This was an attempt to outlaw the manufacture and sale of alcohol. Ultimately,
the government was unable to effectively regulate the sale of alcohol or reduce
its consumption, even though officials closed down nearly all alcoholic
beverage companies. Only a few companies stayed in business. Colorado’s Coors
was among them, as Coors produced alcohol for medicinal use as well as soft
drinks.
Instead of
teaching morality, which was one of the government’s goals, Prohibition created
lawlessness in the form of illegal alcohol (often referred to as moonshine) and
illegal bars, known as speakeasies. Because these illicit businesses were
unregulated, gangs sprang up to distribute moonshine in a process called
“bootlegging.” Crime rates increased as well as deaths related to alcohol.
Often the home-brewed drinks were unsafe, containing high lead content from old
carburetors converted to stills. Wood alcohol, methanol or other noxious
materials such as household cleaners were sometimes added to speed up the
process and save money. Blindness was not an uncommon occurrence after drinking
“bad” moonshine.
The biggest “booze” raid
in the history of Colorado took place in Denver in 1922, when 73 agents of the
U.S. government — 55 from the ranks of the Colorado Rangers — made simultaneous
raids on 25 hotels, rooming houses, cigar stores, soft drink parlors and
private homes, most of them in the heart of the city’s business district,
looking for evidence of violations of the national prohibition law (The Denver
Post, March 17, 1922).
On the southwest
side of Colorado, many of the gold and silver mines in the San Juan Mountains
were closing down because of the lack of minerals. This provided the perfect
location for stills. Moonshiners would hide a still back in a closed mine shaft
and brew their moonshine without being caught. They would then ship the product
out to surrounding areas. One method for peddling moonshine in Durango was to
paint milk jars white, then fill the jars with the disguised liquid.
Though many
citizens made their own brew, moonshine was a relatively good business toward
the end of the 1920s and in the early years of the Depression. The Eighteenth
Amendment making Prohibition legal was repealed on December 5, 1933.
